Page 17 - Florida Sentinel 11-27-15 Edition

Sunday School
Teaching God’s Word (Acts 18:1–11, 18–21)
synagogue with both Jews and Gentiles.
Church history indicates that, more often than not, the church leaders were not pro- fessional—they had other means of employment. But at other times the church funded the leaders. When Silas and Timothy came from Macedo- nia, Paul was able to devote himself fully to teaching the Word of God as opposed to making tents. This is probably because Silas and Timothy brought some offerings from the Macedonian churches, which freed Paul from his other job constraints. Paul had freedom in Christ to accept money for his teaching (1 Corinthians 9:15-18) or re- fuse it (1 Thessalonians 2:9). But the content of his teaching remained the same, namely Jesus was the Messiah.
Paul’s full-time teaching ramped up the response and the opposition to the gospel. Certain Jews opposed Paul and became abusive. Literally, they “stood opposite him and blasphemed him.” Paul used a line with his opposition that had deep prophetic roots: Your
blood be on your own heads.
This essentially meant, “Take responsibility for yourselves before God” (Luke 9:5; Acts 13:51; Ezekiel 33:1-9). We see a repeated formula in this section of Acts: Jewish rejec- tion leads to Gentile inclusion, which leads to Jewish jealousy and further rejection or accept- ance. That is even the way God planned it (Romans 11:11, 12).
Paul left the synagogue and went next door to Titius Jus- tice’s house to teach. This obvi- ously chafed the Jewish leaders. But they were even more upset that one of their own, Crispus the synagogue leader, and his family became believers and were baptized with other Corinthians.
Corinth was not Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood. It was like plowing concrete. So to head off any discouragement, God came to Paul in a vision one night and encouraged him in four ways: 1. Don’t be afraid. 2. Keep teaching God’s Word. 3. I am with you (the Im- manuel principle). 4. I have lots of prospects for the gospel here. Paul must have won-
dered, “Gospel candidates in this city? Really?” But Paul took the encouragement and stayed in Corinth longer than he had stayed anywhere else up to this point in his missionary career.
Staying in Corinth for that lengthy period was not a walk in the park (Acts 18:12-17). The Jews stirred up the city and tried to get Gallio to weigh in against the missionaries. They even beat Sosthenes, the new synagogue leader (since Crispus had become a Chris- tian). But the proconsul apa- thetically dismissed Paul’s opponents.
Finally Paul took leave of Corinth and headed back to Antioch of Syria (the conclu- sion of the second journey). On the way he had his hair cut at Cenchreae (evidently due to a voluntary vow he had made— see 21:24). He left Priscilla and Aquila in his brief teaching stay in Ephesus and agreed to return if God willed. God would will, as the third journey would show (19:1-7). Paul was committed to teaching God’s Word—even in the most wicked of places.
Could teaching the gospel reverse an immoral city like Corinth? Paul thought so.
Paul left Athens and went to Corinth. This is like going from the frying pan into the fire. If Athens had philosophical ob- jections to the gospel message, then Corinth had moral objec- tions. Paul teamed with a dy- namic couple, Aquila and Priscilla. They were Jewish Christians from Pontus but had been working in Rome. They ended up being expelled from Rome as a result of Claudius’s decree. It was hard in these earliest days for the Roman government to tell the real difference between Chris- tians and Jews.
In The Twelve Caesars, Sue-
tonius said that this expulsion was due to the controversy over “Chrestus.” Most scholars believe this to be a misspelling of Christ.
The work in Corinth was young. Silas and Timothy were still in Macedonia, so there was no financial support coming from the churches for Paul’s missionary work. Therefore Paul worked with Aquila and Priscilla making tents. In other words, he was bi-vocational— at least for the time.
Every young man in Torah school (Acts 22:3) was also taught a trade. While tent mak- ing was Paul’s day job during the week, he reserved his week- ends for teaching the gospel. He reasoned (dialogued) in the
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